What do the HDP voters in İstanbul want?

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The Spectrum House Research Center asked the opinions of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) voters in the 30 districts of İstanbul in July-August 2021. The surveys were taken by the HDP voters who live in İstanbul and who said they voted for the HDP and/or Selahattin Demirtaş in the last general elections on June 24, 2018 and the last local elections in 2019.

The participants were asked questions about the primary local problems of İstanbul and Turkey and their stance on municipal services and elections.

Kurdish was the answer of 81 percent of the participants to the question "What is your mother language."

When they were asked about "the biggest problem of İstanbul", the HDP voters living in İstanbul said that it was transportation (22.63 percent). According to the HDP voters living in İstanbul, the second biggest problem of the metropolitan city was again transportation (18.82 percent).

The HDP voters living in the city indicated that unemployment was the second most important problem facing the İstanbulites.

As for the third biggest problem of İstanbul, the respondents listed the problems of lack of green space, earthquake, high prices and transportation.

Questions on Canal İstanbul, İmamoğlu

When they were asked about their stance on the Canal İstanbul project, 93 percent said that they did not approve the project.

5 percent were undecided.

The participants were also asked how content they were with Ekrem İmamoğlu as the Mayor of İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality.

While 68 percent said that they were content with İmamoğlu as the İstanbul Mayor, 16 percent said that they were very content.

Asked a further question about "what determines their level of content with Ekrem İmamoğlu," the HDP voters' most frequent answers were "He is working well" and "He is not let work", respectively.

The biggest problems of Turkey

When the respondents were asked, "What are the biggest three problems of Turkey", their answers on the top of the list were the Kurdish question (29.04 percent), the problem of justice and freedom (19.92 percent), unemployment (14.97 percent), Presidential System (9.77 percent), corruption (9.77 percent) and difficulty in making ends meet (8.59 percent).

According to the survey results, voters say that "when the Kurdish question is resolved, both economic and other problems will be solved."

"Which party would you vote for if we had elections this weekend," the respondents were also asked. While 75.9 percent opted for the HDP, 8.7 percent picked the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP). 6.9 percent of the respondents did not want to answer this question.

When the same question was asked about the 1st round of Presidential elections, jailed former HDP Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş ranked first with 76.02 percent and he was followed by Ekrem İmamoğlu with 9.62 percent and by Ankara Metropolitan Mayor Mansur Yavaş with 7.59 percent.

According to the survey results, if the favorite candidate of the HDP voters in İstanbul cannot make it to the 2nd round of Presidential elections, almost half of them (48.2 percent) will vote for Ekrem İmamoğlu and 13.82 percent will vote for Ankara Mayor Yavaş. 13.04 percent of the respondents said that they would vote for a candidate to be recommended by the HDP.

When the respondents were asked, "Do you think snap elections should be held," 89 percent answered in the affirmative while 7 percent said that "the elections should be held as scheduled."

Voters indicated that there is a mistrust of the elections and elections will not offer much of a solution. (RT/SD)